I was about to say the same thing. This is TOO SMART a response for this character. Yes, young people can have insight and can be surprisingly articulate at times, but this is excessive to the point of breaking the suspension of disbelief.

It should be noted that this interaction does follow Paul’s tendency for a end-of-the-week data dump or mild cliffhanger / resolution.

It really sounds like this script was written for Nadette and her sister, an interaction much more in keeping with the content, but Paul was already set in the Gilchrist home and could not figure out a way to get her sister there… come to think of it WHY is Nadette there?

So yes, I am also calling this out on pacing with a side order of data dump.

Nim: Both you and BarerMender are making the same rather obvious error in your analyses: You are assuming that an eight-year-old Whatsit is directly equivalent to an eight-year-old human.

You have absolutely zero basis for that statement, and we have some evidence to the contrary in Castela’s occasional shifts in and out of an adult-human equivalent mode of discourse.

Given that she is a synthetic being, created for a specific purpose, she may well be programmed with multiple layers of cognition and personality – if you read Datachasers, consider CeCi, who is programmed with multiple personalities and imperatives (of which we may not yet have reached the end).

She may well be a lot of things. That’s like Ken Hamm saying Noah might well have had diesel cranes. Without word from the author, it’s empty speculation. In any case, fiction is about people. All characters in fiction are expected to act in a normal human manner unless explicitly specified otherwise.

“‘In any case, fiction is about people. All characters in fiction are expected to act in a normal human manner unless explicitly specified otherwise.’ Since when?”

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Further thought: I know a lot of SF and fantasy writers more-or-less-closely (my brother is a Big Name Pro SF writer). If you laid that line on them, most of them would laugh in your face – probably, especially, the fantasy authors.

And guess what? This is a fantasy comic.

So long as Paul doesn’t break his own rules (and he doesn’t have to tell us what they are, either) he can do whatever he damned well pleases with his characters, and we can’t tell him it’s wrong or “unrealistic”.

And, hey, if we don’t like it, there’s a button on our browsers we can click to go somewhere where the author follows the rules WE like.

I stand by my statement. All fiction is about people. I say so as a fantasy writer myself. It doesn’t matter how fancy you make your characters, they have to be people. The only exception I’ve ever seen is in science fiction, where writers try to create genuine aliens. It’s hard to do. I refer you to the work of C.J. Cherryh.

[b]Barermender[/b]: You’re backing off from your own original statement, aren’t you – conveniently ignoring the part where you said “[i] All characters in fiction are expected to act in a normal human manner unless explicitly specified otherwise.[/i]”, since it is explicitly stated – several times – that Castela is not even approximately human.

You are trying to impose your own prejudices as to how something should be done on another’s work – one in which your position is most definitely a minority view among readers.

If you had said “In my personal opinion, which is not a law of nature, all characters in fiction are expected to act in a normal human manner unless explicitly specified otherwise,” that would be one thing.

But attempting to flatly lay down the law as to how another creator should conduct his business and stating that your way is the Only Correct Way is rude at a minimum.

“There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays and every single one of them is right.”

…The heck? I’m here solely because these characters are quite other than human. The standard you’re trying to apply doesn’t apply to this comic, and I’m glad, because the comic would be far more boring if it did. OOCly, Castela’s whole appeal is that she’s both adorable and freakishly inhuman; this example of her mixing the wise tree with the goofy little girl is just another example.

Further, Castela’s mix here seems to be deeper than you think. If Nadette needed to be told what Castela’s telling her, then Nadette wouldn’t’ve been trying to keep it to herself. Castela here is mixing insight with oversimplification — just the thing to expect.

If she were behaving in an aphysical way, as if she’d actually experienced more time than that, sure that’d be a problem, but that’s not what we’re seeing here. She even said “smell” last page, what would you think if she were “disguised as” a cat or dog instead of a human? We’re seeing her behaving in an inhuman way. Which she is. I’d say nonhumans shouldn’t behave like humans, unless there’s a reason — and her growing up trying to imitate a human is reason enough for what humanity she shows here.

Something i forgot to put in that long comment: Nadette is there because, as can be seen by reviewing the week’s pages, this is a direct continuation of the sequence that began at the skate park; she came to the Gilchrist place with Atsali and Castela, and this is directly following on; she hasn’t had a chance to go home yet.

I doubt that they’re actually noticeable to norms – consider that a large fraction of the core cast have fangs, or consider Tina’s eyes (or Katherine’s, for that matter), and apparently hardly anyone actually notices.

Like Monica and Shelly’s “cat marks”, or Antimony Carver’s scar that only shows in her aetheric form, they’re there mostly as a marker for the reader.

Also, her stutter has been gone this week. But i dont see it as a not a continuity gaffe. Castell is a Para, not a human 8 year old, and I’m used to Paras making big developmental jumps as they develop. Or id I miss Paul saying that Castrol was going to develop like a human?

As Tarlok said above, Castela first showed utterly unexpected wisdom three story-years ago, back in http://wapsisquare.com/comic/life-strategies/, and maybe once or twice since. It’s too blatant to be ascribed to the author’s carelessness. But it really needs an explanation some day, and I hope that day is soon. In particular, I wonder if she’s always been wise, her stuttering and little-sister tormenting of Atsali 99% of the time being just a mask, or does it only come out from somewhere when someone needs help? And if so, from where? I certainly don’t buy ‘I’ve just had to pick up a few more life strategies than most little kids.’ Kid-Castela and Yoda-Castela are too different.

She’s half omnipotent plant, which is enough of an explanation to me.
That side of her heritage will probably surfaced more and more. Her spontaneous outbursts of wisdom aren’t even the only things that most likely have to do with that:
-She managed to outright kill a Fae, who are descriebd as ‘only slightly less dangerous than elementals’
-She can desintegrate stuff with her bare hands (so far only toys while playing)

I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d be the focus of one of the next adventureous arcs. Though Atsali also doesn’t seem to be your run of the mill Siren/Succubus hybrid, considering how she managed to handle both Tsillah and Thymbris so fast that she managed to actually surprise them (Are those markings on her face from either of her parents lineages or are they something else?).

I’ve been following your wonderful comic for a few years now and I have to say that Castela is one of my favorite characters. The more she masters her human look the more I can’t wait to see her get older. I bet she’s going to take after her mother in a few years.